Daniel proud of Southport's season despite Grand Final result

The Southport Sharks season may have ended in disappointment on Sunday, but it did not take away from an impressive season from the 2018 premiers.

The Sharks entered the Grand Final as underdogs with Brisbane going undefeated in 2019, however with both sides only matching up once throughout the season it could truly have been anyone’s game.

For Southport coach Steven Daniel, he was proud of his group who simply met a better team on the day.

“We were just completely blown apart by the best side, not only in our competition, but probably one of the best teams outside the AFL system at the moment,” he said.

Southport ran with Brisbane for a majority of the first quarter with late goals in the first term bridging Brisbane’s lead to 32 points at the first term.

Daniel’s calm and composed first quarter team talk was based around the sides KPIs and reminding his side that they did not have to turn the tides completely in a quarter of football.

“My job as a coach was to put some belief into the players that we could get there… at the end of the day we were beaten by a superior team that just blew us away,” he said.

After the match Daniel said a lot of the talk was directed towards the success of the season as opposed to the Grand Final result.

“We reflected more on the year then on the game, we mainly spoke about the year to get here,” he said.

Looking ahead to 2020, Daniel will again lead the ship at Southport after signing an extension earlier in the season.

“We’ll get to work and try put a list together again that we feel will compete with the best,” he said.

When asked whether recruitment or retention is the priority, Daniel said the transient nature of the Gold Coast made retention the first priority.

“Retainment is really important…. as we seem to turn over 10-14 players most years. The in terms of recruitment, we will look at and try identify what we need and try and pick that up,” he said. 

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